Active Imagination

[Dreamking]

Hey everyone,

I came here a while back trying to figure out how best to label something I've practiced since childhood. It plays out like an OBE but the actual experience seems to be closer to what Jung called Active Imagination. I checked and there is a post about it in another section of this forum. If I am in the "real world" in these experiences I occasionally find characters representing Jungian archetypes. If I'm in other worlds, these seem to operate on their own laws for the most part. I've been "visiting" one since childhood which has evolved over the years into a very complex and intricate world. A couple times these have turned into full OBEs but that is a tiny fraction. I'm curious, does anyone else here practice Active Imagination, and what do you think the relationship between that and phasing/OBEs is, if any at all?

[Phalanx]

I am not familiar with Jung's work so I can't comment about his archetypes.

Active imagination like as in day dreaming?

I've read something some where that day dreams are like looking though a window into the astral versus actually being there more physically. There are accounts when people become bored or are when doing monotonous tasks the mind gets bored and looks for something else to do it day dreams, sometimes to the extreme where people have actually fallen into an Obe. Ive read an account where this woman was driving and she was of course bored it was a monotonous task driving home. Most people do not remember the full trip when driving to work or home because it is a task that has been turned into a habit so the subconscious mind takes over and does the task instinctively like breathing. So this woman had an experience where she was floating above the car as it was driving down the road home obviously she freaked out a bit afraid the car would crash and came to with no problems. This would be why its advised not to practice meditation while driving or the such.

I have had similar experiences when I used to work stocking shelves (by hand no machinery), after a short time I turned it into a repetitive task and mentally got bored and began to day dream and would find myself at the end of the isle work done. A bit confused sometimes at first how I got there but nothing was wrong with my work I always got great work reports from managers about the work I had done and if someone came to me for something I was fully responsive. After some time I was able to consciously monitor both the day dream and the physical. But during the time I was daydreaming of all sorts of things.


I do have an active imagination but I do not "practice" it, it is something that has just always been that way and I am not a.d.d or anything like that. I have poor visualization skills when it comes to holding an image like thinking apple, apple, apple, apple when my mind decides to go apple , apple, orange, tree, snake, like flickering tv channels. When it comes to daydreaming as long as I do not try to hold it like that, it tends to flow with no problem like watching a movie. When I do daydream it is like watching a movie or a play at the theater, I'd be viewing what going on from a distance with like a separation between me and the scene. I can take part and when I do I step more into the scene but there tends to be still some separation. Everything in these things usually tends to do what they want on their own but I can control things if I want to as long as it is not trying to hold a still image like apple apple ect and then they do what I want but if I let them be they go back doing their own thing.

[Dreamking]

It's not the same thing as daydreaming. Basically what I've experienced is somewhere in between daydreaming and a real dream in terms of vividness. This link has a decent explanation of it. http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/active_imagination_techniques_carl_jung-t32634.0.html

[Phalanx]

From the link you gave 2nd paragraph in the getting started section...

Active Imagination is possible when one moves his/her everyday consciousness towards the dream world. "Dream world" is used here to mean nothing more nor less than that realm that we all experience when sleeping, falling into sleep, or coming out of sleep.

And reading through the rest of it it sounds like a form of meditation but your searching for a familiar mentality that being the dream state when asleep.

But Daydreams are the same just instead of being asleep being awake. Though I would agree that most normal peoples daydreams, vividness is usually nothing like actually sleeping because of dual consciousness of an awake operating body and the daydream. So it is like fleeting image, hazy image or simple thought. But I think almost everyone in these forums has more deeper vividness to their daydreams where it is far closer to a sleeping dream. And personally through having experience I have gone deep into a daydream even though I mention some separation they do become quite vivid where when I worked as stock hand I lost reality awareness that is where I ended up confused at the end of the isle, but for the sake of working I learned to keep awareness and not let it get so vivid for safety and such reasons. But the experiences and/or daydreams were still of top quality so personally I find them to be the same thing.